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Current Events

The TAOnline Current Events section will keep you up-to-date on the most recent
transitioning military career related happenings. This section is updated bi-weekly,
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Corporate America loves hiring veterans. Part good strategy (think valuable technical
and leadership skills), part good finance (think tax incentives) and part good P.R.
(no explanation needed), companies have increasingly been promoting their pledges
to bring thousands of employees with military experience onboard. Some companies
or employer coalitions like Starbucks, Walmart and the newly renamed Veteran Jobs
Mission are reaching or blowing past milestones toward the goals they've set.

But what happens once those sought after workers are in the door?

That track record, particularly among veterans in professional careers, is not very
well understood, says Julia Taylor Kennedy, a senior fellow at the research think
tank Center for Talent Innovation. So Kennedy and her team set out to survey 1,022
veterans working in full-time, white-collar professions as well as to conduct in-depth
interviews with some 40 more.

"Companies are investing enormous resources into recruiting veterans," said Kennedy,
a co-author of the report, released Tuesday, which cites data that veteran hiring
efforts can consume as much as 20 or 30 percent of recruiting budgets at some large
corporations. "But companies are failing to make good on that investment. What we
find is veterans get in the doors of corporations and they're either not looking
to rise - what we call 'tuned out' - or another big portion is 'stalled out,' " —
that is, they're eager to advance but have trouble getting promoted.

The study, which was co-authored by Michael Abrams, who founded the veteran support
organization Four Block, found that many veterans feel under-utilized, alienated
and uninspired in corporate workplaces. Fully two-thirds of the respondents said
they weren't using three or more of the skills they have that could be applicable
to their employers.

Meanwhile, only 2 percent said they have an executive who really champions and advocates
on their behalf. That compares with 19 percent of men and 13 percent of women in
CTI's surveys of the general professional population, Kennedy said.

"That was really stunning for us, because we feel sponsorships are the real key
to getting up the corporate ladder," she said, noting the gap may be due to the
more hierarchical leadership style many military veterans bring to their jobs, which
could make them less attractive candidates for such an advocate, even if unintentionally.
"They're used to taking and giving orders. They're not used to getting buy-in first,"
Kennedy said.

Also in the survey, roughly half of respondents said their colleagues had made false
assumptions about them (such as that they're politically conservative or have post-traumatic
stress disorder); more than a quarter tried to downplay their military experience
with colleagues; and nearly a third of those with a service-related injury or disability
hid it from their colleagues.

Many said they didn't want to get into awkward or tough conversations with their
colleagues. For example, one former sniper said, "you would not believe the number
of times I've been asked how many kills I had," Kennedy recalls. Some also didn't
want to be seen as having special advantages, an issue that could be particularly
delicate as companies go out of their way to hire veterans.

That was especially true for veterans who are also racial minorities, the report
says. Nearly 40 percent of Hispanic veterans, 25 percent of black veterans and 21
percent of Asian veterans - compared with 14 percent of their white peers - avoided
sharing their military experience with colleagues, the study found.

Less surprising, however, is CTI's finding that nearly two-thirds of veterans said
they felt more purpose in the military than in their corporate jobs. Many cited
far less camaraderie with their teams at work, and those who were no longer leading
other people as they had in the military missed doing so. This was particularly
true for women: 56 percent of female veterans said their corporate careers weren't
meeting their goal of meaningful work, compared to 47 percent of male veterans.

While such numbers may be not be encouraging, companies are starting to pay more
attention to the sort of issues raised in CTI's report, said Nicholas Armstrong,
the senior director of research and policy at Syracuse University's Institute for
Veterans and Military Families. That may be partly because just over half of veterans
leave their first post-military job within a year, Armstrong said, leading to costly
and time-consuming amounts of turnover for companies. "The conversation is shifting
now," Armstrong said. It's moving from a focus on just hiring vets to asking, "What
are we doing to find better matches for their careers?"